UMB has many students from very different backgrounds and just like our personalities vary, so do our choices in cuisine. Imagine yourself as a foreigner coming to UMB to receive your college education. What should your experience in an American university be? Should you expect to see the kind of food you’re used to eating back home in where you’re from? What if you’re a health conscious person—should the university go out of its way to accommodate your specific needs—ensuring that the food YOU like is always around? You may not have any qualms about what is morally acceptable to ingest and might just find that the food here doesn’t meet your standards.
Recently the Mass Media conducted a poll which asked students to comment as to their level of satisfaction with the university’s food service. The answers and the explanations to those answers may surprise some. A mere 32 percent of the students polled would describe themselves as feeling satisfied with the food service here at UMB. 52 percent declared themselves not satisfied and the remaining 16 percent said they don’t care.
More than half of the people who gave answers express dissatisfaction what exactly does this mean? How can things be improved in the cafeteria? One student told the Mass Media that she’s only satisfied “when there’s green curry” which is a Thai dish. Hmm…something international perhaps? After all, UMB has a substantial international population, with many of its enrolled students hailing from Asia.
Could the university find some way to accommodate these students? There’s a Burger King, a sandwich shop, a place to get some pizza, maybe a calzone, and a salad bar. That seems pretty expansive and in fact, not everyone is unhappy with the selection. One student told MM that “compared to other schools our food is pretty good” although she also wished “there were more health options.”
Don’t get me wrong, sometimes I just have to eat some junk food—I’m talking copious amounts of fat and grease. However, that could be the reason why so many Americans today are overweight. A wider selection at the salad bar—a more inviting selection at the salad bar could help to give the students here more incentive to choose a healthier diet rather than just a quick solution to your daily hunger. Jordan Lloyd, graduating in 2012 expressed profound disappointment with the soup selection recently, saying that “the soup game has been slacking” and “I’ve been waiting for the coconut chicken soup for a LONG time!”
Has soup ceased to be an important part of our diet? Listen people, soup does matter and it’s time we give it a fair shake for once. Coconut chicken soup? I didn’t even know such a thing existed but that doesn’t make it any less important than your average cheeseburger and fries combination. Who’s in charge of the food here on campus? Do these opinions even matter? For my part I would certainly like to see more options. Just give me more, like the glorious Britney song says.
I will leave you with this gem from a student when asked what he thought about the food. “They all suck.” Harsh! But maybe true?